Overfingland Circuit

With the weather looking cold and grim, today’s walk was just a short circuit of some of the Lowther Hills to do a section of the Southern Upland Way (SUW). We parked near Overfingland just north of the Dalveen Pass. Our route was clockwise up the SUW to Lowther Hill then to Green Lowther and back down the Lang Cleuch. Nothing too dramatic, with some compass practice thrown in for amusement.

Jazz above Dalveen Pass

Lowther Hill radar in cloud

The SUW bumps over three hills before getting to Lowther itself: Laght Hill, Comb Head1 and then Cold Moss (which is a Donald). There is nothing particularly demanding here except for the deep gash after Laght Hill where it tries to drop down to the Dalveen Pass. However, it was about here that the view disappeared as we entered cloud and snow showers and headed up towards Lowther Hill. It was very satisfying using the compass and finding we were spot on as the radar appeared about 10m ahead of us.

Road to Lowther Hill

Crooked Bank and Lang Cleuch

After lunch sheltering behind one of the buildings we headed down the road to Green Lowther. It was a bit different to the last time we were here in mid-summer. For one thing, you don’t usually get a small flock of Snow Buntings! From Green Lowther we dropped down into the Lang Cleuch. It is barren hill and with no visible landmarks we just had to go by compass. So again it was satisfying to drop out of the cloud and find ourselves in the correct valley. We follow the track down all the way to the car.